A Personal Reflection and View about Life

Main menu

Post navigation

The Idea of Sacrifice

The word sacrifice is defined in the dictionary as a giving up of something valuable or important for somebody or something else considered to be of more value or importance; something valuable or important given up as a sacrifice. When people interact and communicate in their daily lives, they operate and function in way that they can be understood and recognized in nicer way, thus they sacrifice something for one and another. When male and female interact, there is a reality that comes to being in their interaction, which is called love, which is manifested and measured by the amount and extent of sacrifice they do for one another. This is between two beings that are opposite.

When sacrifice is communicated and interacted with the mass in which few great people have demonstrated in their lives to the good of the mass and the future of the world, as history books tell, which we find in political and religious arenas of life, it has different reflection since the love such people have is not only towards people, but the goals and visions they set in life, which incorporate people as one element, but not as the end, the end goal is the vision they set, and hence, they sacrifice their lives, property and other aspects of their lives to the vision they set in life.

When their vision in life can be integrated with others, they coordinate and combine it in form of institution; it gets structure and content, and people work together to achieve something better. For instance a given organization can be established to help the needy, old people, homeless people, mentally ill and the like. When such institutions are genuinely established, they attract those genuine people who have personal vision to give assistance to such people who used to put activities of such type in their personal diaries, but go beyond diaries and put their efforts in very organized manner by joining such institutions and they sacrifice whatever things they possess in life to the good of such institutions, to society, which goes in alignment with their personal goals they set in life.

When a person has set good vision, person does not kill those people who come against it, but devise other genius mechanisms that cannot be hindered by others. When the vision is authored and owned by person, there should be healthier and nicer mechanism to its implementation for its fulfillment. When vision is copied and paste from others, there is no other mechanism and tools such people use except using those mechanisms those people originated as an original idea, hence if they killed people, others kill since they inherit the vision. However good vision in this great century is a vision that does not cost many lives and properties for bad and thus it should be carried out by no loss of lives and property as well.

People make sacrifice in many ways and conditions to the good of people, goals they set in life and in fact to the betterment of the world as well. In fact, what is sacrifice; is this something that people do part of what they have or losing what they have? Is this something they do in leisure time or as regular and daily activities of their life? Why do people sacrifice for others? What is the driving factor that makes people to sacrifice what they have in relation to their life, knowledge, property, rime and the like? Conceptually, the idea of sacrifice has grown up from past up to date by religious outlook, which are described in the following statements taken from written materials of others, which are helpful and useful for understanding the historical progress the idea has achieved.

Sacrifice (religious ritual) (Latin sacrificium, originally “something made holy”), a ritual act in which a consecrated offering is made to a god or other spiritual being in order to establish, perpetuate, or restore a sacred bond between humanity and the divine. Offerings may consist of humans or animals (blood offerings) or fruits, crops, flowers, and wine (bloodless offerings).

Sacrifice played a central role in many ancient religions. The ancient Greeks sacrificed animals (such as goats, sheep, horses, dogs, and cattle), sometimes consuming part of the offerings in a celebratory meal as a way of establishing communion with the gods. In Mexico before the Spanish conquest of the 16th century, the Aztecs offered human sacrifices to the sun god, a practice that took as many as 20,000 lives a year

During the earliest period of Hinduism, the Vedic period, Hindu priests offered humans, animals, and plants in sacrifice at certain stipulated times. The ancient Chinese also practiced human sacrifice and made offerings of domestic animals and of food to gods and to ancestors. Sacrifice has never been practiced in Buddhism, although devotional offerings of incense, lighted candles, and flowers are made to the Buddha.

Sacrifice was an essential and elaborately prescribed part of Judaism until the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in ad 70. Among the many sacrificial rites of ancient Judaism were those for thanksgiving and for expiation of sins

In Christianity the death of Christ on the cross is considered an exemplary and perfected sacrifice offered to expiate the sins of humanity. Throughout the writings of St. Paul, Christ is identified as a sacrificial victim (see 1 Corinthians 5:7; Ephresians 5:2; Hebrews 10:12-13). The Eucharist has been associated from the beginning of the Christian church with the sacrifice of Christ, and in some Christian churches, notably the Roman Catholic church, the Eucharist is interpreted as a form of participation in Christ’s sacrifice.

Many theories concerning the origin of sacrificial rites have been offered, especially in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but no conclusive case has been established. Contemporary scholars tend to be more interested in the symbolic and functional significance of sacrificial acts. One theory, for example, considers sacrifice a form of nonverbal communication between human beings and their gods. Another relates sacrificial offerings to the economic value they have in a particular culture. Several scholars have argued that the forms of sacrificial rituals resemble the structures of human relationships and that the rituals are therefore symbolic not only of religious aspirations but also of the daily lives of those who take part in them.

Whatever definition and conceptual understanding is delivered., the trend we see on our world in relation to such concept of sacrifice, in which people sacrifice animals or human beings for redemption of their sins exist as in idea, but whatever sacrificial elements are done, people keep on making sins and many mistake in life in which such acts are reflected in form of regret and those who have sense of shame could ask forgiveness or ask an apology and those who do not have sense of shape keep on making same mistake and sins of life, due to the fact they donot understand whom to seek such forgiveness since there is biased or illogical way of telling, when they ask, whom they should ask, and the like, for many possible and convincing reasons.

Basically, the idea of candle is good example and illustration in relation to sacrifice in which there are two types of candles. The first ones are those candles who are used when the power cut off is there, in which they give light and they help those people who are in the power blackout areas. The second ones are those candles who are used to decorate anniversaries, birthday parties and the like.

Both candles exist in every system and society, since power cut off exists everywhere due to natural disasters and other unforeseen condition, and people lit candles so that they can cook their food, do few things they should so that the operation should continue in a way it should. Every system and society celebrates its anniversary and other events, by lit candles. The crux is on the nature of the function of the candle.

When people sacrifice, is this like to be for birth day and anniversary celebration or when the power is cut off, which is left to those who can see things in their own way in which those candles who are used when those people are in dark, they consume themselves to the good of others. Unfortunately, when one opens an eye, most people like to be birthday and anniversary candles in which they prefer to be next to huge cakes in which they like the company of those cream cakes than any other aspect of life.